High Content Image Cytometry: A Versatile Tool for Mapping Subnuclear Organization

The human eye is a powerful and sensitive instrument which excels in pattern recognition, by using mental templates to identify and categorize objects. Unfortunately, its exact strength may also be its weakness, for it implies a certain subjectivity to the interpretation of images. Furthermore, our distinctive power and vocabulary for describing objects in a quantitative manner are limited. Accurate visualization and characterization of cellular features thus calls for a more objective approach, which can now be provided by the fast growing discipline of high content image cytometry (HCIC).